Invoicing Innovations for SMEs

Are you looking to streamline your invoicing? Handling invoicing by hand is time-consuming and occasionally creates costly errors. Every year, new technologies and software are released to help SMEs with limited resources handle their invoicing more efficiently, avoid miscommunications, avoid accounting errors, and spend less time on paperwork. 

Here are a few we think you should know about:

Cloud-Based Invoicing

With the cloud, you can always have quick access to any invoices that you need to look over, even using an app on your phone to do so. You can get real-time updates about the status of your accounts receivables, too. Cloud-based invoicing eliminates the needs to have paper invoices as well as the cost to print, send and store them. It also makes sharing invoices across team members simple.

Online Payments

If you deliver invoices in person or send them through mail, online payments will be a significant upgrade for you. Online payments make things more convenient for your customer which can encourage them to pay you faster. With online payments, when your software detects that the payment has been made, your whole accounting system can be automatically updated.

Online payments are also ideal for international clients, especially because they are available 24/7.

Automation  

Many aspects of invoicing can be immediately performed by your software through automation. After your client’s appointment is completed, software can automatically send out their invoice without your input. Software can automatically remind clients about unpaid invoices, automatically update your accounting team about partial payments, and do so many more actions that otherwise you’d have to pay someone to perform.

Artificial Intelligence

You can take your invoicing to the next level with artificial intelligence. Some software offers predictive intelligence that can help you spot errors with invoicing, refine your estimating and billing processes, and even generate more revenue. Some artificial intelligence even offers tools to help you reconcile accounts, get payments from clients who are late, and encourage early or on-time payments. You may be surprised at all of the features invoicing software can offer through artificial intelligence.

Other Features

When you invest in invoicing software that offers any of the above, you will often also get access to other features that help your business be more successful. You may be able to track project completion, calculate customer lifetime value, see when your average customer pays and get better, up-to-date information about your cashflow. Chances are, invoicing software will help you see just how critical managing your invoices and accounts receivable is to the overall success of your enterprise.

Choose Invoice Factoring

Of course, you don’t have to do all of your invoicing yourself. At J D Factors, we can handle the more challenging aspects of managing your accounts receivables. You send your invoice to us instead of your client, we pay you within 24 hours, and we handle all of the further contact with your client. We follow-up, send reminders, collect payment, and even handle non-payment and bad debt. Reach out to us at J D Factors to make your invoicing simpler and more reliable than ever.

Invoicing Do’s and Don'ts - Advice from the Experts

You've done the work, now it's time to get paid! Are your invoices encouraging your clients to pay quickly and on time? Your invoice is part of your customer's experience with your business and doing it well will encourage them to pay you faster. 

It's important to be paid quickly – a good payment turnaround can benefit your business because strong cash flow lets you pay your bills, capitalize on opportunities, and remain stable. It all starts with invoicing. Here are our invoicing tips and guide on how to get paid quickly.

Include a Due Date

You shouldn’t think of your invoice due date as optional. Clients absolutely need a reminder of when the invoice is due whenever they look at it, or there’s no real motivation to go and pay it. You should also think carefully about the terms of your invoice. If your industry standard is 60 or even 90 days, you may want to buck the trend with something more reasonable, such as 30 or 15 days. These terms help you get paid faster and help you get on missing payments faster, too.

Also, keep your due dates consistent so your clients understand when they should pay.

Create a Self-Service Portal

Mailing or hand delivering invoices is outdated, and even emailing them creates the opportunity for them to get buried or land in someone's spam box. Try a self-service portal instead that offers payment methods to customers. Deliver the invoice through the portal, so that your customer is immediately able to pay the moment that they get the invoice.

Choose a portal with lots of payment options, or you will discourage your customers from using it.

Direct Your Invoice Properly

Sometimes your point of contact in the company is not the best person to send the invoice to. When you start working with a client, ask them who should receive the invoice. Often, you’ll have a dedicated contact in accounting who should get all of your invoices. This can save you time, as you won’t be relying on your contact to send your invoice to the right person. That extra step can actually add a lot of time if your contact is busy.

Offer Early Pay Discounts

If it is affordable for your business, offering a small discount for early payment can really help you get paid faster. Try offering a two percent discount for payment before the 15-day mark, or even earlier. Customers who want to take advantage of this discount will often pay the moment they get their invoice. That can save you a tremendous amount of time and work in collecting the invoice.

Don’t offer too much of a discount, or a discount for common pay terms like 30, 60, or 90 days. Those who pay exactly on-time should be motivated by late fees. Use a discount only to encourage the fastest turnaround possible, or you may simply be losing money without getting enough benefit.

Are you still struggling to get paid quickly, even when using these best practices? You can get paid even faster and have a healthier cash flow with invoice factoring! At J D Factors, we pay you as soon as you send your invoice, which can have huge benefits to your business. Reach out to learn more about factoring today.